3 Mistakes you should avoid when selling your character

Introduction

The Char Bazaar works using the English Auctions rules. This could mean a lot more risk to whoever is on the selling side of the deal. Keep reading to find out what are the most common mistakes from players trying to auction their characters.

Since English Auctions get much more bids towards the ending, you should select the end time carefully.

First of all, don't select anything near the Server Save. Usually there are not many players online at this time, which means less bids for you. Besides, the worst about it is that during server save is when the Tibia website has the most chance of being in maintenance. This would make it impossible for players to bid on your auction during this time!

"We’re sorry for the inconvenience" - Cipsoft

In the auction settings menu, the auction end time will be at the server save time as the default, so make sure you change that! Try to find a time (and a weekday) with a high online players count for your server region.

Another interesting tip is to pick an ending minute like xx:45. Since most of the auctions uses the default xx:00, choosing something different will give your auction an edge because then it will have a better chance to stay at the Char Bazaar front page. If you don't do that, your auction might be sinked to the bottom (or even to the second page) at its most crucial time. Check out the end time distribution between all auctions of our database:

You shouldn't be selling items on your auction. Most of the time, players will evaluate your auction value based on your character stats (skills, charms, etc), without looking at the items. They might factor in your highlighted items, but they probably won't be searching through your depot pages full of trash to see what's inside.

Also, you are better off liquidating your valuable items on the regular market. You can patiently wait for anyone to accept your sell offers without the risk of selling it on the auction for a bad price. The gold you get can be easily converted to Tibia Coins, without paying the 50 TC fee and 12% tax from the Char Bazaar.

Even trying to auction one single rare item (like a Ferumbras' Hat) is suboptimal. Not everyone is always actively searching for those items, so buyers will probably only be aware of your auction when it's already too late. In that case, it might be a good idea to advertise your auction, so that it gets more exposure and bid offers.

This one is all about game theory. You have to think in terms of what is your character expected value and what is your worst case scenario:

• If you character has a low expected value (e.g 200 TC), you should also set a low starting price. This helps you to avoid the worst outcome for this scenario: not selling your character and losing the 50 TC fee. The fee price is only relevant in this case because the gap between the fee and your expected value is small.
  
• If you character has a high expected value (e.g 50.000 TC), you should set a really high starting price. Losing the 50 TC fee in this case is a much better outcome than selling your character for any value far under your expected value.

This strategy becomes more important the closer to the extreme your expected value is (very high or very low). If you have a medium expected value, just set a price you wouldn't regret selling your character for and that's it.